Alex Pereira vs Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335: A Must-Win for a Three-Division Dream
Dana White announced it on the UFC 332 Kick stream: Alex Pereira faces Sergei Pavlovich in a five-round heavyweight co-main event at UFC 335 on Dec. 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Charles Oliveira and Diego Lopes headline that card for the BMF title. The co-main is the more consequential fight.
Pereira Needs This One
Pereira is 39 and 13-4. He lost his heavyweight debut to Ciryl Gane by TKO at UFC Freedom 250 in June, an interim title fight. Gane was later promoted to undisputed champion when Tom Aspinall vacated because of eye issues.
A second straight heavyweight loss would put Pereira 0-2 in the division and effectively end the three-division conversation. He won the middleweight title in 2022, moved up, won and defended the light heavyweight title multiple times, and vacated it to chase this.
That is an enormous amount of career equity to put on a weight class he has yet to win a fight in.
Pavlovich Is the Wrong Kind of Opponent
Pavlovich is 21-3, a Russian southpaw standing 6-foot-3 at 257 pounds with an 84-inch reach. He is on a three-fight win streak and most recently finished Tallison Teixeira. He lost an interim heavyweight title fight to Tom Aspinall in November 2023.
Read that physical description again against a former middleweight. Pereira’s power translated to light heavyweight because his timing and his left hook are elite. At heavyweight he is the smaller man giving up reach to someone whose entire career is built on hitting people once.
Joe Rogan called Pavlovich a “tough task” for Pereira in his first reaction to the booking. That is Rogan being diplomatic.
There Is a Revenge Angle
Pavlovich knocked out a Pereira teammate roughly seven months ago, which gives this a personal layer the UFC will lean on in the promotion. The teammate’s identity has not been confirmed in reporting I can verify, so take that angle as framing rather than fact.
What I Expect
Pereira has built a career on being underestimated and on landing one shot before the other guy does. At 185 and 205 that was a repeatable formula.
At heavyweight the margin collapses. Gane did not knock him out with a lucky punch, he outclassed him. Pavlovich hits harder than Gane and is less interested in a long fight.
I would take Pavlovich inside two rounds and be slightly nervous the whole time, because Pereira has made that prediction look stupid more than once. December will tell us whether the chin that carried him through two divisions holds up against men built to break it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
